Electronic Arts - Press News - Coming Soon Magazine

ELECTRONIC ARTS INVESTS IN ACCOLADE

Companies Ink Multiyear Distribution Deal

San Mateo, CA, March 11, 1997 -- Electronic Arts (Nasdaq:ERTS), a leading global interactive entertainment company, today announced it has made an investment in Accolade, Inc., a privately-held interactive game developer and publisher, based in San Jose, California. It was also announced that Accolade has signed a multiyear Affiliated Label agreement under which Electronic Arts (EA) will have exclusive distribution rights for all new and certain existing Accolade software titles. Financial terms of the agreements were not disclosed.

Founded in 1984, Accolade, Inc., publishes action, sports and strategy games for multimedia personal computers, the Internet and next generation gaming systems such as the PlayStation game console. Leading titles from Accolade include HardBall, Jack Nicklaus Golf, Test Drive, Deadlock and Star Control.

"Accolade has delivered high-quality entertainment to the market for more than a decade," stated Larry Probst, chairman and CEO of Electronic Arts. "The investment in Accolade continues our strategy to partner with content developers who can provide consumers with quality games. This agreement allows us to add Accolade's titles, including the top-selling HardBall, Test Drive and Jack Nicklaus games series, to our product mix line up and to leverage the worldwide distribution infrastructure we have created."

"Accolade's partnership with EA provides us the financial resources and the strong distribution presence necessary to continue building our product franchises and growing the company," said Jim Barnett, president and CEO of Accolade. "We are pleased to become Electronic Arts' largest worldwide Affiliated Label."

EA's minority investment in Accolade follows strategic investments made last year in Firaxis Software, Inc. of Hunt Valley, Maryland, and in Tiburon Entertainment, Inc. of Longwood, Florida.

# # # Electronic Arts, headquartered in San Mateo, California, is a leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA posted revenues over $530 million for fiscal 1996. The company develops, publishes and distributes software worldwide for personal computers and advanced entertainment systems such as the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Electronic Arts markets its products worldwide under five brand names: Electronic Arts, EA SPORTS , ORIGIN Systems Inc., Bullfrog Productions Ltd. and Jane's Combat Simulations. EA has international subsidiaries in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and US development operations in San Mateo, Calif.; Baltimore, Maryland; Austin, Texas; and Seattle, Washington.

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